Most IMDs available on the market today can communicate wirelessly with an external communication device. An IMD will monitor both the condition of the patient and the condition of the IMD itself. When an abnormal condition is detected, the IMD issues an alert and communicates it as part of a transmission to the external communication device. Transmissions may also be sent if there is no abnormal condition. In such a case the transmission may comprise some data attributes indicative for the status of the device or the status of the patient. Transmissions may further be initiated by the IMD itself or by the patient. Typically, to save power, the external communication device is located within close range of the patient in order to limit the power consumption of the wireless communication. The external communication device functions as router and forwards the alert to a central IMD management system.
Typically, such an IMD management system is managed by the vendor or provider of the IMD. Medical or technical staff can then log onto this system to view and handle transmissions generated by the IMDs.
US2010/0123587 discloses such an alert management system that can be used by a provider of IMDs. Incoming alerts are managed by processing values of parameters related to the alert such that appropriate actions can be taken. This way a relatively small number of parameters can be defined to manage a relatively large number of different alerts.
US2006/0017575 discloses such an alert management system that can be accessed by a care giver through a web interface. The care giver may then change different settings for the alerts and even define certain clinical or device alerts.
US2012/0108917 discloses such an alert management system wherein the IMD-generated alerts can be customized in many ways so as to suit the health condition and personal circumstances of each individual patient. The alerts can also be customized to provide an appropriate alert for each individual patient corresponding to a patient-initiated emergency notification transmission from the patient's adherent device.
A problem with the existing solutions is that all IMD management systems are vendor or provider specific. Medical or technical staff has to access all IMD management systems separately for each vendor or provider and thus lacks a unified overview.